"Pale Fire" is regarded by many as Vladimir Nabokov's masterpiece. The novel has been hailed as one of the most striking early examples of postmodernism and has become a famous test case for theories about reading because of the apparent impossibility of deciding between several radically different interpretations. Does the book have two narrators, as it first appears, or one? How much is fantasy and how much is reality? Whose fantasy and whose reality are they? Brian Boyd, Nabokov's biographer and hitherto the foremost proponent of the idea that "Pale Fire" has one narrator, John Shade, now rejects this position and presents a new and startlingly different solution that will permanently shift the nature of critical debate on the novel. Boyd argues that the book does indeed have two narrators, Shade and Charles Kinbote, but reveals that Kinbote had some strange and highly surprising help in writing his sections. In light of this interpretation, "Pale Fire" now looks distinctly less postmodern - and more interesting than ever.
In presenting his arguments, Boyd shows how Nabokov designed "Pale Fire" for readers to make surprising discoveries on a first reading and even more surprising discoveries on subsequent readings by following carefully prepared clues within the novel. Boyd leads the reader step-by-step through the book, gradually revealing the profound relationship between Nabokov's ethics, aesthetics, epistemology, and metaphysics. If Nabokov has generously planned the novel to be accessible on a first reading and yet to incorporate successive vistas of surprise, Boyd argues, it is because he thinks a deep generosity lies behind the inexhaustibility, complexity, and mystery of the world. Boyd also shows how Nabokov's interest in discovery springs in part from his work as a scientist and scholar, and draws comparisons between the processes of readerly and scientific discovery. This is a profound, provocative, and compelling reinterpretation of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

The Hoarse Oaths of Fife re-fights in novel form the Battle of Loos, 25th September, 1915,surpassed by far every previous slaughter of Scottish fighting men. The German machine guns reaped them in swathes - the Highland Light Infantry at Mad Point, the Seaforthsat Fosse 8, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders at Cuinchy brick stacks. The flower of Scotland's infantry did reach their objective, the coal-mining village of Loos,with Piper Laidlaw standing on his parapetto urge them on. But they went too far and lost direction and ended up like all the rest,heaped in dead mounds. At the northernmost point of the British line, the Fourth Black Watch stormed across No Man's Land with the Punjabi Muslims of the Vaughan's Rifles behind them. Their share of glory was a private massacre all to themselves, a fate brought to life in tragic detail through the experience of Kenny Roberts, Great War veteran, who through his profane reverence for his native soil is destined to become a clarion voice in Scottish fiction.The Battle of Loos centenary is September 2015.No fiction has re-told the battle of Loos with anything like this power of characterisation before.It is the first fiction in English to reveal what happened to the children begotten of French and Belgian women who fraternised with the Muslim soldiers of the Indian Army on the Western Front.

Source: Wikipedia. Commentary (novels not included). Pages: 84. Chapters: The Wanderer, I Am Legend, Alas, Babylon, The Postman, The Stand, A Canticle for Leibowitz, The Passage, Earth Abides, World War Z, The Hunger Games, Swan Song, Catching Fire, The Iron Dream, Dies the Fire, Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse, The Road, Left Behind, Pebble in the Sky, Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb, Dead Heat, Lords of the Psychon, One Second After, The Last Ship, The Years of Rice and Salt, Emergence, The Dead and the Gone, Lucifer's Hammer, The Long Loud Silence, The Genocides, The Gate to Women's Country, Tribulation Force, A Meeting at Corvallis, Assassins, Resurrection Day, Soul Harvest, Apollyon, The Indwelling, The Diamond of Darkhold, Monster Island, Nicolae, The Remnant, Glorious Appearing, Armageddon, The People of Sparks, The Valley-Westside War, Arc Light, The Long Tomorrow, Desecration, Amnesia Moon, Engine Summer, Out of the Ashes, The Unincorporated Man, Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction, The Moon Maid, Eternity Road, The Scarlet Plague, Signal to Noise, The Fifth Sacred Thing, In High Places, Monster Planet, Ship Breaker, The Star-Crowned Kings, The Last Centurion, Monster Nation, The Children's Hospital, The Aftermath, The Last Jihad, A Signal Shattered. Excerpt: The Stand is a post-apocalyptic horror/fantasy novel by American author Stephen King. It demonstrates the scenario in his earlier short story, Night Surf. The novel was originally published in 1978 and was later re-released in 1990 as The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition; King restored some text originally cut for brevity, added and revised sections, changed the setting of the story from 1980 (which in turn was changed to 1985 for the original paperback release in 1980) to 1990, and updated a few pop culture references accordingly. The Stand was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1979, and was adapted into both a television miniseries for ABC and a graphic novel published by Marvel Comics. The book is dedicated to King's wife, Tabitha: "For my wife Tabitha: This dark chest of wonders." The novel is divided into three parts, or books. The first is titled "Captain Trips" and takes place over nineteen days, with the escape and spread of a human-made biological weapon, a superflu (influenza) virus known formally as "Project Blue" but most commonly as "Captain Trips" (among some other colloquialisms). While the base tries to shut down before any infected person can escape, a security malfunction allows a guard and his family to sneak out. Unfortunately, they are already infected, and release an epidemic, which quickly turns into a pandemic, that leads directly to the death of an estimated 99.4% of the world's human population. King outlines the total breakdown and destruction of society through widespread violence, the failure of martial law to contain the outbreak, and eventually the death of virtually the entire population. The human toll is also dealt with, as the few survivors must care for their families and friends, dealing with confusion and grief as their loved ones succumb to the flu. The expanded edition opens with a prologue titled "The Circle Opens" that offers greater detail into the circumstances surrounding the development of the vi

Lionel 'Buster' Crabb became renowned during the Second World War for his amazing feats of underwater daring. After the war he was celebrated for embodying a particular English ideal -- a love for King and Country -- that seemed to be dying out. Then, in 1956, during a visit to Britain by Nikita Khrushchev, who had arrived by ship, Commander Crabb disappeared. Some thought he had perished while attempting to inspect the Soviet vessel; others that he had been kidnapped and forced to work for the USSR. Out of this mystery Tim Binding has spun a wondrous piece of fiction. It is the story of a man who has made deep personal sacrifices for the sake of higher ideals and who must, towards the end of his days, measure their meaning and their worth. Praise for Man Overboard: 'Such an arresting subject for a novel that one wonders why no one ever thought of it before ...Binding fashions a convincing picture of a restless postwar world ...a consistently entertaining and resourceful novel' D J Taylor, Guardian 'His triumph is to have created a marvellous, anachronistic hero in a novel which not only tries to explain a famous mystery, but takes a hard look at what Britain lost when the war was won' Daily Mail 'The dialogue is always a comic delight .
..Man Overboard is one half James Bond story (except more soulful), and one half Ealing Comedy. As such, it is pretty irresistible' Daily Express 'Tim Binding has written a historical novel which with a very light touch dramatizes the faint but inescapable foreignness of the past without turning it into a costume drama; its poignancy is the product of conviction. Binding wields a range of linguistic fire-power often missing from contemporary fiction, as much at ease with the visionary set piece as with bar-room banter ...[Man Overboard] is a remarkable feat of compression, representing a significant artistic advance' Sean O'Brien, TLS

Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" is one of the best-known novels of the 20th century: the controversial story of Humbert Humbert who falls in love with twelve year old Lolita, beautifully repackaged as part of the Penguin Essentials range. 'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.' Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, frustrated college professor. In love with his landlady's twelve-year-old daughter Lolita, he'll do anything to possess her. Unable and unwilling to stop himself, he is prepared to commit any crime to get what he wants. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? Or is he all of these? "A masterpiece. One of the great works of art of our age". ("Independent"). "You read Lolita sprawling limply in your chair, ravished, overcome, nodding scandalized assent". (Martin Amis, "Observer"). "Redeeming, splendid, headlong, endlessly comic and evocative". (John Updike). "Lolita is more the shocking because it is both intensely lyrical and wildly funny ...a Medusa's head with trick paper snakes".
("Time"). "His command of words, his joy in them, his comic and ecstatic use of them ...makes reading his work such an intense joy". ("Daily Telegraph"). "A great novel...It widens our own humanity". ("Guardian"). "There's no funnier monster in modern literature than poor, doomed Humbert Humbert. Going to hell in his company would always be worth the ride". ("Independent"). Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, before moving to Berlin in 1922. Between 1923 and 1940 he published novels, short stories, plays, poems and translations in the Russian language and established himself as one of the most outstanding Russian emigre writers. In 1940 he moved with his wife and son to America, where he worked as a lecturer and professor until he retired from teaching in 1959. Nabokov published his first novel in English, "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight", in 1941. His other books include "Ada"; "Laughter in the Dark"; "Despair"; "Pnin"; "Nabokov's Dozen"; "Invitation to a Beheading"; "Mary"; "Bend Sinister"; "Glory"; "Pale Fire"; "The Gift"; "The Luzhin Defense" and "Lolita", which brought him worldwide fame.
In 1973 he was awarded the American National Medal for Literature. Vladimir Nabokov died in 1977.

The Hugo Award winning A FIRE UPON THE DEEP and its epic companion novel A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY, set in the same universe but 20,000 years earlier, were benchmarks for SF in the last decade of the 20th century. In FIRE 'Vinge presents a galaxy divided into Zones - regions where different physical constraints allow very different technological and mental possibilities. Earth remains in the "Slowness" zone, where nothing can travel faster than light and minds are fairly limited. The action of the book is in the "Beyond", where translight travel and other marvels exist, and humans are one of many intelligent species. One human colony has been experimenting to find a path to the "Transcend", where intelligence and power are so great as to seem godlike. Instead they release the Blight, an evil power, from a billion-year captivity.' Publisher's Weekly In DEEPNESS, 'the story has the same sense of epic vastness despite happening mostly in one isolated solar system. Here there's a world of intelligent spider creatures who traditionally hibernate through the "Deepest Darkness" of their strange variable sun's long "off" periods, when even the atmosphere freezes.
Now, science offers them an alternative. Meanwhile, attracted by spider radio transmissions, two human starfleets come exploring--merchants hoping for customers and tyrants who want slaves. Their inevitable clash leaves both fleets crippled, with the power in the wrong hands, which leads to a long wait in space until the spiders develop exploitable technology. Over the years Vinge builds palpable tension through multiple storylines and characters.' Dave Langford

Let Evie Hunter, the bestselling Irish erotica author, light up your autumn fires with her latest sizzling novel, The Pleasures of Autumn. This is another of hot-hot-hot tale of romantic obsession and explosive sexual chemistry, a novel that fans of Sylvia Day, Kitty French and E.L. James will love and devour. When museum curator Sinead O'Sullivan is charged with stealing the Fire of Autumn, a dazzling ruby with a history of violence and treachery, bail is set at one million Swiss francs. Investigator Niall Moore is hired to stop her fleeing and to find the jewel. Their sexual chemistry is electric but logic says to ignore it. Desperate as she is to convince Niall of her innocence, Sinead cannot reveal everything she knows. And the feisty red-head's improbable tale tells him that she is not to be trusted. Yet it's impossible to ignore the carnal heat between them. Niall, an expert interrogator, uses every trick of the trade - and every weapon in his erotic armoury - to get at the truth. Sinead, a fast learner, counters his every move with one of her own. Thief and thief-taker fight for dominance and there can be only one winner.
But what happens in their red-hot game of cat-and-mouse when criminals chasing the precious jewel come after Sinead ...and the stakes become deadly? In just a year Evie Hunter has shown that you can tell an addictive erotic story with a page-turning plot. The Pleasures of Autumn is the new must-have read all her fans have been waiting for. And if you're new to Evie, well you're in for a delcious treat...

'I put my lips to her soft skin and bit down, feeling my teeth puncture the flesh, and suddenly...'
Noctine, 'turned' into a vampire by the loathsome Cloudius, thus discovers the ecstasy of blood. Joined by a suave French vampire called Jean Paul, Noctine's friend and lover, they cut a swathe through the high life and low life of Oxford and Coventry. Here they set up house with glam-vam Verity and her lover, Sugar, and lead a life of blood-filled ease and sexual abandon. Enter Asteria, the stunning flame-haired streetwalker-turned-vampire, Noctine's 'dark promise' and his helpmate for eternity...
Until Cloudius decides to destroy them in a terrifying gothic showdown inside a church. Fire, blessed wood and the light of day keep the outcome in the balance - but even the devil's spawn have loyal followers!
Fang fiction takes a new, glamorous twist in Faith Kohl's stylish and hauntingly beautiful novel set in the late 1700s and 1800s. Heart-stopping scenes of endearment are cut with outrageous passages of bloodlust and depravity, but nothing can mar the sheer sensual fabric of the writing.
Faith Kohl was born in Rugby, England. She left school at fifteen due to mental illness and has been self-educated since then. Her mum and cats have helped her through her problems and have been there for her.
She is a practising Wicca and became a writer quite by chance. She has always loved reading, especially J R R Tolkein, Anne Rice and Philippa Gregory novels. The Lord of the Rings is her favourite book and movie(s).

Images of ruins may represent the raw realities created by bombs, natural disasters, or factory closings, but the way we see and understand ruins is not raw or unmediated. Rather, looking at ruins, writing about them, and representing them, are acts framed by a long tradition. This unique interdisciplinary collection traces discourses about and representations of ruins from a richly contextualized perspective. In their introduction, Julia Hell and Andreas Schonle discuss how European modernity emerged partly through a confrontation with the ruins of the pre-modern past. Several contributors discuss ideas about ruins developed by philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, Georg Simmel, and Walter Benjamin. One of the other contributors examines how W. G. Sebald's novel "The Rings of Saturn" betrays the ruins erased or forgotten in the Hegelian philosophy of history. Another analyzes the repressed spectre of being bombed-out of existence that underpins post-Second World War modernist architecture, especially le Corbusier's plans for Paris. Still another compares the ways that formerly dominant white populations relate to urban-industrial ruins in Detroit and to colonial ruins in Namibia.
Other topics addressed include atomic ruins at a Nevada test site, the connection between cinema and ruins, the various narratives that have accrued around the Inca ruin of Vilcashuaman, Tolstoy's response in "War and Peace" to the destruction of Moscow in the fire of 1812, the Nazis' obsession with imperial ruins, and the emergence in Mumbai of a new 'kinetic city' on what some might consider the ruins of a modernist city. By focusing on the concept of ruin, this collection sheds new light on modernity and its vast ramifications and complexities. Contributors include: Kerstin Barndt; Jon Beasley-Murray; Russell A. Berman; Jonathan Bolton; Svetlana Boym; Amir Eshel; Julia Hell; Daniel Herwitz; Andreas Huyssen; Rahul Mehrotra; Johannes von Moltke; Vladimir Paperny; Helen Petrovsky; Todd Presner; Helmut Puff; Alexander Regier; Eric Rentschler; Lucia Saks; Andreas Schonle; Tatiana Smoliarova; George Steinmetz; Jonathan Veitch; Gustavo Verdesio, and Anthony Vidler.

New York Times bestselling author Karen Ranney returns with the third heart-stirring novel in her latest series, a tale of deceit, desperate measures, and delirious desire Rose MacIain is a beautiful woman with a secret. Desperate and at her wits' end, she crafts a fake identity for herself, one that Duncan MacIain will be unable to resist. But she doesn't realize that posing as the widow of the handsome Scotsman's cousin is more dangerous than she knew. And when a simmering attraction rises up between them, she begins to regret the whole charade. Duncan is determined to resist the tempting Rose, no matter how much he admires her arresting beauty and headstrong spirit. When he agrees to accompany her on her quest, their desire for each other only burns hotter. The journey tests his resolve as their close quarters fuel the fire that crackles between them. When the truth comes to light, these two stubborn people must put away their pride and along the way discover that their dreams of love are all they need.

Dive into a world of enchantment and romance in this lush fantasy, which Stephanie Perkins, international bestselling author of Anna and the French Kiss, called "an absolute delight--a magical, sparkling, dangerous world with witty repartee and a romance that will light your heart on fire." Fans of Libba Bray and Cassandra Clare will fall in love with this captivating stand-alone novel from Kiersten White, New York Times bestselling author of the Paranormalcy trilogy.Jessamin has been an outcast since she moved from her island home of Melei to the dreary country of Albion. Everything changes when she meets the gorgeous, enigmatic Finn, who introduces her to the secret world of Albion's nobility. It's a world that has everything Jessamin doesn't--power, money, status . . . and magic. But Finn has secrets of his own, and the vicious Lord Downpike will do anything to possess them. Unless Jessamin, armed only with her wits, can stop him.

Add a touch of Scandinavia to your home and your wardrobe. Scandinavian style has never been more desirable, with its emphasis on natural materials, light and fresh colours, and classic motifs. Mia Underwood inherited her love of making things from her Danish grandmother, and she understands both the techniques and the heritage of crafts from Scandinavia. In Nordic Crafts she presents 35 new projects which reflect the traditions of the Scandinavian countries, with a modern twist. Projects for the home include a novel bread basket, and a gorgeous bird mobile. For a child's room, there is a beautiful baby blanket, and a woodland scene to hang in the window. For playtime, felt animal masks will fire your child's imagination, while nisse - mischievous elves - are easy to make from scraps of wool. The Danish love of coziness and comfort - 'hygge' - is reflected in patterns for felted slippers, embroidered mittens, and snoods for both adults and children. Finally, there are things to make for the celebrations that come round every year, including the all-important Christmas decorations, and ideas for decorating your home at Easter, in the Scandinavian way.

Even Jennifer herself has in the light of severe recent tragedies found herself gaining a new understanding of all she has been through. This book looks back at the traumas and insecurities of her childhood, the joys and trials of family life through the most testing of circumstances, the confusion caused by her life-threatening illness and subsequent miracle healing, the pain of bereavement and - the most recent chapter that no-one foresaw - divorce from her husband Tony. Journey Into God's Heart is an epic saga of a unique woman's journey through the fire. An adventure that lasts a lifetime, a path strewn with heart-testing challenges. Written as compellingly as a novel, it presents a completely new perspective on the story told in Jennifer's previous autobiographical books Beyond Healing and Unexpected Healing. Her journey unfolds against the backdrop of the momentous changes undergone by the evangelical and charismatic church in the mid and late twentieth century.